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AN ADDRESS 

ON 

JOHN RUSKIN 

BY 

ALFRED T. RICHARDS 



ADDRESS 

delivered before tfie 

Men's Class of the Asylum Hill 
Congregational Church 

Hartford, Connecticut 



By 
ALFRED T. RICHARDS 



4- 



January 10, 1904 






" One comfort is, that Great Men, taken up in 
any way, are profitable company. We cannot look, 
however imperfectly, upon a great man, without 
gaining something by him. He is the living light 
fountain, which it is good and pleasant to be near. 
The light which enlightens, which has enlightened, 
the darkness of the world; and this not a kindled 
lamp only, but rather as a natural luminary shining 
by the gift of Heaven; a flowing light fountain, as I 
say, of native original insight, of manhood and 
heroic nobleness; — in whose radiance all souls feel 
that it is well with them. On terms whatsoever, 
you will not grudge to wander in such neighborhood 
for a while." 

Carlyle. 



By transfer 
The White House, 



THE AFTERGLOW OF A GREAT 
MAN'S LIFE. 

I HAVE stood on the utmost verge of Cape Cod, 
half an hour after sunset, and watched the clouds 
come up out of the west — black, gray, and white — 
and in huge masses and multitudinous shapes have 
seen them float across the moors, and far out over 
the sea. A grand and imposing spectacle — but 
not a joyful one, for in it there was no warmth, no 
color. Soon again, from the same low quarter, 
there burst forth long stretches of crimson and gold 
that slowly melted into Elysian fields of palest green 
with flaming furrows of molten gold. Even the 
white clouds of the upper sky were touched into 
beauty by the rosy pink of a coming dawn. 

As I stood thus, gazing in wonder and admira- 
tion on all that splendor, I remembered it was but 
the rich afterglow of a sunken sun. In all that 
beautiful handiwork of Nature we see a symbol of 
the results which follow a great man's life long after 



2 The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 

he has disappeared from this earth. Though dead, 
he yet continues to speak. Well does Jean Paul 
ask " How do great men bring it about that their 
own invisible spirit in their works seizes and holds 
us fast, without our being able to quote the words 
and passages whereby they do it, as a thickly-leaved 
forest murmurs, though not a single branch stirs? " 
We cannot answer this question, but I am sure most 
of us have felt the magic spell of which the poet 
speaks. 

Think how immeasurably poorer this City of 
Hartford would be, in all that makes for true great- 
ness, had there not lived and wrought in our midst 
the illustrious Horace Bushnell. The afterglow of 
that great man's life is still working in our city's life 
and possessions. We see it in our capitol, in our 
parks, in our libraries and art galleries, in our pulpits, 
and more than all, in the lives of all good citizens. 
And for generations to come Dr. Bushnell will con- 
tinue to be a kind of sacred oracle to whom men will 
repair for light and inspiration. 

The afterglow of such a life is like the yearly 



The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 3 

overflow of the Nile, carrying in its course fertility 
and beauty, making the desert to blossom as the rose. 

But it is of another great man that I especially 
wish to speak this morning — a poet, an artist, a 
prophet, and a man of God — the radiant John 
Ruskin. 

He came into this world in the year 1819. A 
memorable year — for in it were also born Queen 
Victoria, James Russell Lowell, Charles Kingsley, 
Walt Whitman, and Arthur Hugh Clough. Young 
Ruskin's father was a successful merchant who had 
cimassed a large fortune. He possessed an innate 
artistic taste, and was a lover of all beautiful things 
in Nature and in Art. His mother was a woman 
of remarkably good sense, and of the most rigid 
religious principles, a true Puritan, in the best sense 
of that term. Mrs. Ruskin dedicated her little boy 
to God at his birth, and, judging from the noble and 
pure life he subsequently led, the precious gift was 
graciously accepted. She taught him to memorize 
long chapters of the Bible from Genesis to Revela- 
tion. In later life we find Mr. Ruskin attributing 



4 The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 

much of his power as a writer to this study of the 
Bible. 

It was the wish of his parents that the boy 
should become a bishop, but a Higher Power 
ordained otherwise. At three years of age the child 
Ruskin would mount a little stool in the parlor of his 
home and preach a sermonette. " Be dood," he 
used to say ; " if you are dood, Dod will love you ; 
if you are not dood, Dod will not love you." Surely 
no trained bishop could preach a truer word than 
that. At seven years of age this youthful prodigy 
was writing poetry, and extraordinarily good poetry 
for one so young. 

Later, in his boyhood, long carriage drives were 
taken with father and mother through the most 
delightful scenes in England, visiting in their excur- 
sions all the public and as many of the private 
galleries of Art as they were allowed to enter. 

Young Ruskin meanwhile employed his time 
at intervals in writing poetry and in sketching from 
Nature and Art. Still later he was taken abroad 
to study the great works of the Old Masters in 



The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 5 

Rome, Florence, Milan, Venice, etc. ; then back 
again to England to enter Christ Church College at 
Oxford. He graduated with high honors, winning 
the very highly coveted honor known as the 
Newdigate Prize for the best original poem. Again 
he turned his steps towards the Continent to continue 
his study of Nature and Art. 

In the year 1843 there came from the press a 
most remarkable book, entitled " Modern Painters," 
by "A graduate of Oxford." It at once arrested 
attention, not only on account of the new theories 
advanced in regard to what should govern the Art- 
world, but also by the unrivaled beauty of its style 
and the wide grasp and profound knowledge of the 
subjects discussed. 

A brilliant star in the literary heavens had arisen. 
" Who can the author be? " was asked everywhere. 
Nobody seemed able to answer the question. Syd- 
ney Smith said in the presence of a large gathering 
of literary characters: " It is a work of transcendent 
talent, presenting the most original views in the most 
elegant and polished language, which will work a 



6 The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 

revolution in the world of taste.*' And it certainly 
did. There were glowing passages in the book that 
reminded one of the flaming words of the prophet 
Isaiah. 

It finally came out that the author of this 
remarkable work was no other than John Ruskin, 
then twenty-four years of age. Thus by one bound 
the young author had taken his place among the 
supreme masters of English prose. The book was 
written mainly to defend the great Turner against 
his critics, and to prove furthermore that that 
supreme master of Color was the greatest landscape 
painter the world had seen. 

Mr. Ruskin subsequently added four more 
volumes to his " Modern Painters." But these were 
only a small part of his works. He continued to 
write on a vast variety of subjects; from the swallow 
twittering on the straw-built shed to the eagle soaring 
in the empyrean, from the little flower of the 
crannied wall to the mighty Cedars of Lebanon, and 
from the dust of the street to the foundations of the 
Alps. Everything he touched he glorified. Every- 



The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 7 

where, and under all circumstances, the burden of 
his message was the Brotherhood of Man and the 
Fatherhood of God. " You can see the sky," he 
said, *' in the merest puddle of the street if you only 
look for it " — and so forth, and so forth. Ruskin 
made literature the organ of the serious mind. 

" What fairy palaces," he said, '* we may build 
of beautiful thought, proof against all adversity: 
bright fancies, satisfied memories, noble histories, 
faithful sayings, treasure houses of precious and 
restful thoughts which care cannot disturb, nor pain 
make gloomy, nor poverty take from us, — houses 
not made with hands for our souls to dwell in." 

If you were to ask me what are the dominating 
notes of his writings I would say majesty and pathos 
— the majesty that uplifts the mind in the glorious 
strains of the " Hallelujah Chorus," and the pathos 
that melts our hearts in the sorrow breathing music 
of the " Unfinished Symphony." The written 
wordst no less than the generous deeds, of a great 
man become a storehouse of moral and spiritual 
electricity, — and although, for a season, the sub- 



8 The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 

tie power may lie dormant, it will burst forth again 
— sometimes in riven bolts against all forms of 
iniquity, but oftener like soft summer lightning as it 
illumines the path of the benighted traveler. 

But Mr. Ruskin was not only a great writer 
and art critic — the greatest in England — but also 
a reformer, a public educator, and a benefactor. He 
hated all shams, and the Mammon worship of his 
countrymen pained him beyond measure. How to 
relieve the misery and ignorance that he saw around 
him was the next labor of his life. 

He began the good work by organizing night 
schools in London for the benefit of workingmen, 
and manual training schools as well. In these 
schools he took a practical part, spending his money, 
time, and talents in advancing the cause. 

A block in the West End of London he bought 
with his own funds and turned into lodgings for 
the deserving poor of that neighborhood. He went 
so far as to open a tea store near by, with the name 
of John Ruskin painted over the door, in order to 
give his tenants and friends an opportunity to buy 
pure tea. 




The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 9 

But his greatest effort was the establishing of St. 
George's Guild, near Sheffield. This was a kind 
of glorified "Settlement," wherein men were to be 
taught to develop the best there was within them, 
along the lines of Art, Science, Agriculture, and 
Political Economy. Candidates for this guild were 
required to make the following Declaration: 

" I trust in the living God, Father Almighty, 
Maker of heaven and earth and of all things and 
creatures visible and invisible. I trust in the kindness 
of His law and the goodness of His work. I will 
strive to love Him and keep His law and see His 
work while I live. I trust in the nobleness of human 
nature, in the majesty of its faculties, and the fullness 
of its mercy, and the joy of its love. And I will 
strive to love my neighbor as myself, and even when 
I cannot, will act as if I did. ... I will not 
kill or hurt any living creature needlessly, nor 
destroy any beautiful thing, but will strive to save 
and comfort all gentle life and guard and perfect 
all natural beauty on earth. I will strive to raise 
my own body and soul daily into all the higher 



10 The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 

powers of duty and happiness, not in rivalship or 
contention with others, but for the help, deHght, and 
honor of others and for the joy and peace of my 
own Hfe.*' 

At Keswick he revived the lost art of weaving 
linen by hand. 

Towards these and kindred benevolent objects 
he gave his money with a lavish hand. No needy 
young man or woman ever begged of him in vain. 

During his life he gave away all the fortune his 
father had left him — a little over a million dollars. 

There never was a more self-sacrificing soul. 
All this splendid public ministry, however, did not 
save him from the sneers of some of his critics. 
Once he turned upon them in these scathing words : 
" Because I have spent my life in almsgiving, not 
in fortune hunting, because I have labored always 
for the honor of others, not my own, and have chosen 
rather to make men look to Turner and Luini than 
to form or exhibit the skill of my own hand, because 
I have lowered my rents and assured the comfortable 
lives of my poor tenants instead of taking from them 



The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 1 1 

all I could force for the roofs they needed, 
finally, because I never disobeyed my 
mother, because I have honored all women with 
a solemn worship, and have been kind even to the 
unthankful and evil, therefore the hacks of English 
art and literature wag their heads at me, and the 
poor wretch who pawns the dirty linen of his soul 
daily for a bottle of sour wine and a cigar, talks of 
the effeminate sentimentality of Ruskin." 

In the fall of 1871 I wrote to Mr. Ruskin my 
grateful acknowledgment of the obligation I was 
under for the teaching and guidance of his writings. 
I told him that he had opened my eyes to see beau- 
tiful things and my ears to hear charming sounds. 
I dared even to ask him what form of catastrophe he 
predicted for England, if she persisted, as he had 
written, in her life of gross materialism? 

The Master promptly replied, thanking me most 
kindly for my letter, and then, among other things, 
said: *' You ask me what form of catastrophe 
threatens England. None of us need speculate on 
the matter ; every historical epoch has its own special- 



12 The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 

ties of ruin. In the mean time, all that we can do 
is, each in his place, to form a clear view of what is 
right and to do that resolutely and simply, in spite 
alike of the fashions and doctrines of our day." 

This truth is restated in a different form in Mr. 
Ruskin's reply to the teacher of an Aberdeen Bible 
class who had written to him asking for a Christmas 
word to his class. Mr. Ruskin said: '* If you care 
to give them a word directly from me, say to them 
that they will find it well throughout life never to 
trouble themselves about what they ought not to do, 
but about what the"^ ought to do. The condemna- 
tion given from the Judgment Throne, most solemnly 
described, is all for the undones, and not for the 
dones. People are perpetually afraid of doing 
wrongs but unless they are doing its reverse 
energetically, they do it all day long, and the degree 
does not matter. Make young hearers resolve to 
be honest in their work in this life. Heaven will 
take care of them for the other." 

Life to Ruskin was no pastime, or market place 
of gain, but a solemn probation period to fit him for 



The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 13 

a higher sphere. His motto was " Today! " — and 
with unwearied diligence he strove to make each 
morning bright, and each day great. 

When at Oxford last year, I had the good 
fortune to be introduced to a gentleman in that city 
who was intimately acquainted with Mr. Ruskin. 
This man, I found out, was not only a musical 
genius, but also a practical builder of some instru- 
ments. He had in his parlor a beautiful specimen 
of an old harpsichord. Thither Mr. Ruskin would 
often repair and, sitting down, ask Mr. Taphouse, 
for that was the gentleman's name, to play some 
chords on the old instrument. The music would put 
Mr. Ruskin into a kind of day-dream, or ecstatic 
state; " then," said Mr. Taphouse, " his talk I can 
describe no otherwise than as ' the beautiful reverie 
of an angel.* Ah! " said Mr. Taphouse, "what 
a pure-hearted soul he was. . . . When he 
left Oxford a great light went out of the city." 

I walked out one summer morning to the little 
village of Ferry Hinksey to see the bit of public 
road built for the village folk by the great Art Critic 



14 The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 

and his band of undergraduates twenty-five years 
ago. On my way back I found myself wondering 
what had become of that jocund band who had 
shouldered the pickaxe and shovel, and worked at 
road-making a quarter of a century since. Then I 
remembered reading that Mr. Ruskin, once return- 
ing from his labors over that same road, told a friend 
whom he met that he felt depressed. Upon being 
asked what troubled him, he replied, " I am afraid 
that all my efforts to educate and inspire these young 
men are altogether valueless." Alas! how little 
we know, the humblest of us, how far-reaching our 
influence may be. The tiny acorn tossed hither 
and thither by every gust of wind finds at last a quiet 
lodgment, and striking its roots into the soil, grows 
up into the sturdy oak and lives for ages. The story 
of the widow's mite will be remembered and spoken 
of as long as the world endures. 

I have since discovered that the great Christian 
worker and distinguished writer. Canon Rawnsley 
of Carlisle Cathedral, was one of these road-makers, 
and so was Wm. H. Mallock, the author of the 



The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 15 

powerful work, " Is Life Worth Living? " and of 
many other works evincing a religious mind of great 
breadth and keenness. Others, too, of those road- 
makers have since made their mark in the literary, 
political, and religious world. But greatest of all, 
perhaps, was the saintly Arnold Toynbee of Toyn- 
bee Hall settlement. Young Toynbee caught the 
inspiration of the Master road-maker to such an 
extent as to give up the dearest outward possessions 
this world could afford, literally to lay himself a 
living sacrifice on the altar of humanity. Well did 
he learn his lesson, and from that bit of crude road- 
building at Ferry Hinksey went up to the East 
End of London to open spiritual roads over which 
many a poor, sin-stricken soul has found a safe path- 
way to Heaven. Thus the teaching of a man of 
God is like a celestial spark dropped into the heart 
of a brother man, and by some mysterious alchemy 
is fanned into a living flame, which, breaking through 
all barriers, rekindles itself in unkindled souls. And 
so the " afterglow " continues to beautify men's 
days. 



1 6 The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 

The earthly career of John Ruskin came to an 
end in the early Spring of 1900, at the age of 
eighty-one. Just at the burst of opening day his 
spirit passed into the unseen world, and the mystery 
of life and its arts was to him a mystery no longer. 

Dean Bradley sent a gracious letter to Mr. 
Ruskin's cousin, with whom he had lived, offering a 
grave in Westminster Abbey, but Mrs. Severn had 
to decline the great honor, as Mr. Ruskin had 
explicitly stated that he wished to be buried in the 
little churchyard of Conniston, alongside of his dear 
old friends the " Ladies of the Thwaite." 

The funeral ceremonies were very simple and 
impressive. A beautiful cream-colored linen pall 
had been woven for the occasion at the Industrial 
School in Keswick founded by Mr. Ruskin. The 
pall was lined with rose-colored silk and em- 
broidered on the obverse side with the wild rose, 
Mr. Ruskin's favorite flower. In the center of the 
pall was the title of the book he loved best of all his 
writings — " Unto This Last." But perhaps the 
most pathetic wreath that was placed on his casket 



The Afterglow of a Great Man's Life. 17 



was one by his old tailor, containing this inscription, 
" There was a man sent from God whose name was 
John." Surely no monarch ever had a fairer wreath 
than that! And now his grave has become his most 
eloquent pulpit. 

Great Heart, the Beloved has gone ! No longer 
will he be seen toiling across the uplands, for the 
pilgrim's staff has been exchanged for the victor's 
crown ! 

No longer will he be seen meditating in the 
fields at twilight, for he is now basking in the light 
of the Eternities! Nevertheless we believe, in a 
supremely great way, he is still there, still here, still 
everywhere, in the 7"rue, the Beautiful, and the 
Eternal. The nightingales of his sweet song will 
continue to pour their heavenly melodies into the 
lives of all receptive souls for generations to come, 
" making one music as before, but vaster," in that 
immeasurable temple whose builder and maker is 
God. 



